The Prague Rule exists for good reasons.
I learned them the hard way.
For fifty years, I’ve kept to the rule. Built empires. Accumulated wealth. Maintained distance. I attend galas and charity events, date occasionally—brief affairs, surface-level, with women who want my money or status more than they want me.
I’ve perfected the art of being alone in crowds.
This request should be easy to decline. It violates everything the Prague Rule was designed to prevent. Fake dating means proximity. It means pretending to be human for extended periods. Spending four days maintaining an illusion that could crack at any moment.
More importantly, it means being seen.
I pull up Poppy’s video submission. The app requires a short video introduction—another feature I added to catch the micro-expressions that photos hide.
She’s sitting on her couch, wearing an oversized sweatshirt. No makeup. Hair in a messy bun. The ring light creates harsh shadows on her face.
“Hi. I’m Poppy. This is weird. I’m aware of how weird this is.” She laughs, and it’s nothing like the fake laughs in her Glowstagram videos. “I’m not usually this kind of person. You know, the person who hires fake boyfriends. Nope. Not at all. I’m the person who has a five-year plan and color-codes her calendar. Someone who knows what she wants.”
She picks at the sweatshirt sleeve.
“Except I don’t. I thought I did. I thought I wanted Preston and the house in the suburbs. The life we’d planned. Then he left, and I realized I’d spent two years planning a life I’m not sure I ever wanted.”
Her eyes meet the camera. Lighter than in her photos. More blue than gray. Tired.
“My sister is getting married. She’s older than I am and has her entire life figured out. My ex will be there, looking happy and well adjusted—everything I’m supposed to be. Ugh, and then there’s my mom. She’ll make comments about my biological clock,” she says, wiping away a tear. “She means well. Here’s the thing... my followers will expect perfect content. And I just... I just can’t do it alone.”
She takes a breath.
“So I’m asking a stranger to pretend to love me for four days. Which is either the saddest thing I’ve ever done or the smartest. I haven’t decided yet.”
The video ends.
I watch it again.
Then a third time.
She’s not what I expected. The curated influencer persona is armor. Underneath, she’s honest. Messy. Human in a way that most humans spend their lives trying to hide.
I know what it’s like to build a perfect exterior while falling apart inside. To smile for audiences while drowning in private. To be so lonely in crowds that the silence feels like its own kind of wound.
I know what it’s like to be seen as something you’re not and wonder if the real you is worth knowing at all.
This is a mistake. I can feel it in my bones—the ones that have survived 257 years by avoiding this kind of complication.
I should decline. Maintain my distance. Stay safe behind the walls I’ve built from wealth and power and detachment.
The Prague Rule. No attachments.
My fingers move across the keyboard anyway.
I mark myself as interested, and hit send before I can reconsider.
CHAPTER 3
POPPY
Morning comes with regret and a headache.
Seventeen notifications. Three from Sage, worried about my silence. Five from brands—smaller ones, the kind I would’ve ignored a year ago. Two from my agent about a skincare partnership.
